The second day in the world of Lightning Returns begins...
I start at the Ark, the base of operations and talk to Hope. He talks about some bullshit about how the world used to have 13 hours (Get it? Get it?), which would total 26 hours per day, but now it's just 24 hours, because somehow the 13th hour got "lost". Okay...? I don't recall this being mentioned in the previous games, but maybe it was one of those details that only obsessed people would notice. Or maybe I saw it and I don't remember. Huh.
So, I forgot to mention in the previous part that I was after some "Children of Etro" fanatics that are killing women with pink hair around the town of Luxerion, the first town in the game.
First thing I'd mention is that FUCK THESE GUYS SUCK AT THEIR RELIGION. Don't they know Etro died? The funniest part is that I have Lightning's outfit from XIII-2 and I walk around wearing it. Somehow, NPCs recognize the armor and say things like ETRO'S CHAMPION and the like. But... shouldn't they know that Etro's death caused Chaos to enter the world? I mean, they know about fucking Bhunivelze, who was only mentioned briefly in one of the more obscure datalogs in the previous games. Seriously guys, get your shit together and learn your mythology.
Oh yeah, I found that pretty interesting, too. NPCs react to the equipment that you are using, not unlike Skyrim, which was their inspiration and all, but I have a huge continuity boner, so these neat continuity nods make me hard.
Err... never mind about that.
So yeah, I got a Red Mage garb (DO YOU REMEMBER THE OLD FF GAEMS GUISE WE DO) and made another Schema which is just laying around there unused because I already have 3 Schematas in my main "deck"(?) and they are strong as fuck, so I have no need to equip others.
Returning to the the town of Luxerion, I continued searching for the rest of the secret numbers to enter an area where the Children of Etro fanatics where killing women with pink hair.
I walked around town and stumbled upon some random encounters and took the time to get used to the battle system.
I have to say, it's incredibly fun to play. It actually feels engaging most of the time, even when fighting weak monsters. Another cool thing relating to continuity nod, is that if you finish a battle using the garbs from the previous games, the fanfare music from the respective game will play. Pretty damn cool.
The battle theme? Fucking amazing. There is more than one, but the one I'm referring to is the Crimson Blitz battle theme
, which is a remix of XIII's battle theme, Blinded by Light. I was never too much of a fan of Blinded by Light. I mean, I enjoyed it and all, but it wasn't something that I enjoyed from the get-go, especially considering that I was expecting more of a Nobuo Uematsu-like soundtrack, but eventually the song grew on me. Damn, when I began a battle and I heard to song, I admit that I got excited. It is a nice remix/rearrangement.
After beating up some random monsters and gaining some Gil, I continued exploring the town. I remember Hope explaining that I would need to be careful with time and be "efficient", doing things as quickly and as much as I could possibly could. But seriously, you can't just hope (pun not intended) that I would just let go of my habit of exploring that easily. It is a deeply ingrained behavior, and it becomes a "vice" in the context of this game. Since the game is just a giant race against time, I don't have time to keep looking at things too closely. But that makes things pretty interesting. I have to say, the gameplay is what's really driving me to play this game, surprisingly, since I tend to focus more on games that are heavy on plot.
Another curious things that I found out is that you can actually attack and enter battle with non-hostile NPCs. At least I managed to do it with guards. What happened was that I tried to attack a monster that was walking around the area to battle it, but the first hit accidentaly hit the guard instead and the hit registered. I didn't enter in battle immediately with the NPC guard, because the battle didn't trigger with just that one hit. I fought and defeated the monster and then tried attacking the guard a couple of times. To my surprise, he was being hit by all of my attacks, and after a few of them we actually entered battle.
I was not expecting that at all, and it turned out that the NPC guard was a lot stronger than the enemies I was facing previously, but I still managed to defeat him. I don't remember if I gained any items, or anything at all, and when I returned to the world the NPC had disappeared. It was very weird. I was seriously not expecting any of that to happen, but it happened. What if that guard had a sidequest later on? I may never know, since I didn't reload a save. I'm not taking the save scumming approach I usually take with games like these and this time I'm just rolling with the punches. Makes for a more "natural experience", so to speak.
Yes, you can save anywhere you want! A very nice feature that more games should have.
While exploring the town, I came across an extremely unusual occurrence. PEOPLE KEEP FALLING FROM PLACES. Seriously, there have been more than a couple of times where I witnessed NPCs walking towards ladders and instead of just using them they just fall to the ground. It is hilarious. Good thing there is no fall damage in this game.
Speaking of fall damage, I may also mention that the "feature" of replenishing your health after battles that the previous XIII games had, is now gone. At least on normal mode, because on easy mode it gets activated again. But seriously if you play this game on easy mode you are a fucking pussy. Go home and drink milk from your mother's tits, you diaper-shitting fuck.
Once again, speaking of gameplay stuff, I have been in situations where even though I was running, Lightning would just stop running for no reason and walk instead. It looked like she was getting stuck on the floor. Weird.
But anyway. Later I stumbled upon the crowd-favorite hentai fodder chocobo-woman, Choco-fucking-lina. Yep, she's back. Do you remember Chocolina? She was nice I guess. I remember finding some hentai of her one day. Faps were had.
I kept finding more of the numbers for the passcode that I needed to enter the ritual area where the fanatics where being held. That area only opens from 0:00 to 6 am. I might as well mention that 6 a.m. is when you get teleported back to the Ark to give back your Eradia to Yggdrasil, because mythological names and world dying stuff so you can prolong the world's death.
So, while finding these secret numbers, Lightning notices that she is being watched by someone. Hope, who is somehow watching everything and somehow communicating with her, never manages to see who that person is, despite having a personal god computer on his hands. What a useful fellow!
Of course, when we later discover the last number of the passcode, we meet Lumina, who is Not-Serah, and then shows us an Oracle Drive and tells Lightning: "Bitch the prophecy shows that you are going to destroy the world. Also, Noel is going to kill your ass."
Oh yeah, I almost forgot about a previous scene where apparently we enter Lightning's mind and we find that Lumina is somehow there too! That girl has some serious evil powers. Lumina then says something along the lines of: "Lightning you can rebel against god if you want, even though you probably have no reason to do that, since he'll give you your sister back." After some discussion with Lightning, Serah's image/phantom appears alongside Lumina saying the same thing she is saying at the same time. Gee, I wonder what that means?
Later when Lightning exits her mind(wat), Hope says that he couldn't find her, and that she basically disappeared. Lightning answers that: "MAYBE IT WAS JUST A DREAM" and Hope goes: "OKAY".
What the fuck? So, she completely disappeared, and somehow she was dreaming? How the fuck did Hope, an accomplished scientist in the past, accepted that bullshit answer? What is... I don't even...
Let's return to where I was previously. Lumina shows the Oracle Drive and shows a .avi of Lightning destroying the world and Noel murdering her, and then Noel himself appears. I got excited when I saw him, not because I'm gay or anything, but fuck I played with him and now I had the chance to kick his ass. It was like seeing an old friend, except he wasn't your friend anymore, and he wanted to murder you and I forgot where I was going with this.
Noel decides that it's not the right time to kill Lightning yet, for some reason, and then after all of that, we finally have the last number of the passcode and enter the ritual area.
But before I go into that, did you fucking know that there is a sidequest where you help a talking cat? Sure, it has the soul of a human, but it's still a cat. I haven't finished it yet, but I have more pressing issues to solve, cat, go solve your problems by yourself.
When not helping humans who had their souls transplanted inside a cat due to Lumina's trickery, Lightning finds children's lost toys.
THE SAVIOR!
But anyway, I entered the area where the ritual was held, and Lightning stopped them just before they killed another innocent woman. Noel shortly appeared, and we find out that Noel, AKA the Shadow Hunter, was not the mastermind behind these plans, and that these fanatics were not obeying his orders. Lightning and Noel's response? Kill everyone.
After killing all of the crazy cultists, Lightning and Noel almost fight, but Square-Enix is not pleased when I have boners, and they don't fight at all. Noel says that they'll still fight later, so I'll hold him on that.
Only a couple of hours were left until it was 6 am, but I managed to complete a couple of quests and accidentally found the child's lost toy. Hurray, I guess. I then slept at the nearby inn for half an hour, replenished my health, and returned to the Ark. I got there, offered some of my Eradia I had gathered doing quests and stuff, but it was still not enough to extend some of the world's time. Oh, well.
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